Saturday, January 22, 2011

Freedom from Dumb

Time to shut up, Mike. How does a month without writing anything about Sarah Palin or mentioning her in a podcast sound?

It suits me fine and I'll join WaPo columnist Dana Milbank in doing, or rather not doing, just those things. His column with a link to tweet your commitment is here. The accompanying art is from that link. I'll add that to my Facebook page at the end of this month.

I hereby pledge that, beginning on Feb. 1, 2011, I will not mention Sarah Palin -- in print, online or on television -- for one month. Furthermore, I call on others in the news media to join me in this pledge of a Palin-free February. With enough support, I believe we may even be able to extend the moratorium beyond one month, but we are up against a powerful compulsion, and we must take this struggle day by day.

Palin is so, so tempting to react to, for her divisiveness, illogic, incivility, and even regular, pathetic abuse of our language. She seems to love the attention and publicity that such responses bring. It's time to take away her high!